The present invention is directed to a technique for monitoring the reactions of a person exposed to a scene and, more particularly, to determine the locations within such scene which attract the person's attention sufficiently to hold his gaze.
In a number of commercial applications it is beneficial to monitor the reactions of an individual person selected to be a test subject when exposed to a predetermined scene. The scene can be, for example, a display in a department store, a shelf in a supermarket, or even a prototype version of an automobile. Each of these examples contains items or features which have been carefully designed to attract the attention of the consumer. For example, when a number of products are competing with each other to be purchased by the consumer, the one which stands out and is most effective in gaining the attention of the consumer may also be the one most likely to be purchased. Consequently, a test of this nature can be revealing in assessing whether, for example, a package which has been designed to stand out does in fact do so. This also applies to the design of an automobile because its shape and features should be pleasing if the consumer is to be sufficiently attracted to purchase it. Results obtained with this test can provide feedback as to whether the various parts of the automobile attract the attention of the test subject sufficiently for him to rest his gaze momentarily on at least a particular one or whether they make little or no impression at all in which case his gaze will simply summarily pass over it. Many other applications of this nature exist which can benefit from information indicative of the extent to which particular elements attract the attention of a test subject. In order to implement such a technique, an approach must be provided which accurately determines the position or positions within a certain viewing area, or scene, on which the test subject's gaze rests.
A number of techniques exist for monitoring the eye movements of a viewer which have the object of determining the location at which his view was directed. One type of such apparatus is generically known as an eye movement monitoring system utilizing head-mounted detectors aimed at the viewer's eye. However, these are relatively complex because the viewer's eye movements must accurately be associated or correlated with the scene being viewed. The calibration to do this is relatively time consuming and is subject to change and error. Also, the equipment and processing techniques are relatively awkward and complex. Moreover, the equipment can be expensive. Furthermore, some of these approaches require a heavy and bulky headgear which is inconvenient to use.
Another disadvantage of such known monitoring techniques is the awareness of the person that his reactions are being tested. A person may not react naturally when he knows that his actions are being monitored and recorded. The test results might, therefore, be somewhat skewed.